Chemists create 'green' method for developing medicines

US researchers say they have come up with an environmentally-friendly way of developing medicines.

It is thought the new class of compounds could be used to treat brain diseases, reports newswise.com.

A team at the University of Arkansas used energy from an ordinary 13-watt compact fluorescent light bulb to create an organic molecule that may be useful in the treatment of Alzheimer’s and other neurological diseases.

The findings are published in the journal Angewandte Chemie International Edition.

"Our chemical reaction provides a new structure, a new building block for pharmaceutical companies that has not been available before," Nan Zheng an assistant professor of chemistry in the J. William Fulbright College of Arts and Science, was quoted as saying.

"It's a very unusual scaffold, very lipophilic and non-polar, which is what you need to cross the blood brain barrier."

Visible-light photocatalysis are rare in organic chemistry because most organic compounds can’t readily absorb visible light, newwise.com said.

Posted by Fiona Griffiths